44 - Say Cheese and Die—Again Read Online Free Page B

wouldn’t believe
it, anyway. I didn’t want to scare him. And mainly, I wanted to get home with it
as fast as I could.
    “Yeah. It works,” I replied, dusting off the back with my hand. “It takes
pretty good pictures.”
    “But why do you want it so much?” Jon asked, studying it as I worked to clean
the dust off.
    “Oh… well. I promised to show it to someone. In school,” I told him. “I
kind of need it for a project.”
    Jon scratched his short, dark hair. “Maybe I should show the camera to my
dad,” he said, motioning behind him. “He might not want you to take it.”
    “But you threw it in the trash!” I cried. I held the camera tightly in both
hands, afraid he was going to try to grab it away.
    “But we didn’t know it works,” Jon replied in his high, shrill voice. “Is it
valuable? Maybe it’s valuable. An antique or something.”
    “No way. It’s not valuable,” I insisted. “Please, Jon. I—”
    “We’d better show it to Dad,” Jon said. He reached for the camera.
    I pulled away.
    I grabbed the camera tighter.
    Heard a click.
    A white flash of light startled us both.
    “Oh, noooo!” I let out a cry, realizing I had pushed the shutter.
    And snapped a picture of Jon.

 
 
9
     
     
    “Hey—why did you do that?” Jon demanded.
    “It—it was an accident,” I stammered. I pulled the picture from the slot at
the bottom of the camera. “I didn’t mean to. Really.”
    Jon and I both blinked several times, trying to get the flashing lights to
fade from our eyes. “It’s an instant camera?” Jon demanded. “It looks too old to
be an instant camera.”
    “Yeah. I know,” I replied. I held up the photo to watch it develop. Silently,
I prayed that the photo wouldn’t show anything terrible.
    Please, please—let Jon be okay in the snapshot, I pleaded.
    With my free hand, I pulled the little flashlight from my pocket. I beamed it
down on the photo as it slowly developed.
    As I stared at the small, square snapshot, I could see Jon’s face come into
view. His eyes were closed. His mouth was open, twisted in a strange expression.
    Before I could really see what was going on, Jon grabbed the photo away from
me. He raised it close to his face and studied it.
    “Hey—what’s with this camera?” he demanded.
    I stepped up behind him to see the snapshot. “Oh, nooooo,” I groaned.
    The photo came out very clear and bright. It showed Jon howling in pain. His
eyes shut. His mouth open in a scream.
    His leg was raised. He was holding on to his sneaker with both hands.
    He was holding on to his sneaker because a huge nail was sticking up from the
top. An enormous carpenter’s nail—nearly as big as a pencil—shoved up
through the center of Jon’s foot!
    Jon laughed. He turned to me. “What is this? Some kind of joke camera?”
    I swallowed hard. I knew it wasn’t a joke.
    The horrifying photos always came true.
    How could I keep Jon from having a nail jammed in his foot? What could I do?
    I decided I had to warn him. I had to tell him the truth about the camera.
    “This is cool!” Jon exclaimed, studying the photo. “It really looks like me.
I wonder how it works.”
    “It—it isn’t cool,” I stammered. “It’s really kind of scary, Jon. The
camera is evil. It has a curse on it. The photos always come true.”
    He laughed. “For sure!”
    I knew he wouldn’t believe me.
    “Well, just be careful—okay?” I insisted. “The photo isn’t a joke.”
    He laughed again.
    A gust of wind sent the tall weeds swaying. Snakes of black cloud slithered
over the moon. Darkness swept over us.
    “I need to borrow the camera,” I told Jon. “Just for one day.”
    “It’s such a cool camera,” he replied. “I don’t know. Maybe I should take it
home.”
    “I’ll bring it back tomorrow afternoon,” I promised. “I just have to take it
to school.”
    He twisted his mouth, thinking hard. “I’d better ask my dad.” He pointed to a
wall of lumber under the trees.